


Hoodie Hot

by TellMeNoAgain



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hoodies, I Hear You Need Tissues, So You Can Guess Who Dies, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25541782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TellMeNoAgain/pseuds/TellMeNoAgain
Summary: Tony's a 15-year-old student at MIT, it's snowing outside, and Rhodey's wearing the hoodie his mama gave him the day he got his acceptance letterA Starker and More Discord prompted fic (tm)
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark
Comments: 13
Kudos: 22





	Hoodie Hot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katiebug9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katiebug9/gifts), [ErjaStark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErjaStark/gifts).



> Thanks to my flexible and funny and frighteningly competent betas, jf4m and mindwiped (plus special guest beta SilentSunPlays)
> 
> All the remaining errors are mine. I love them, and I'm not getting rid of ANY OF THEM.
> 
> Prompt(s) from conversation with friends on the Starker and More Discord server!

Prompt from ErjaStark:

Expanded in conversation by katiebug9 to:

_Smol Tony wearing Rhodey’s MIT hoodie after forgetting to bring a jacket with him on some excursion. He tries to give it back but Rhodey tells him “nah man it looks better on you anyway”. Tony feels so warm inside from that and snuggles deeper in the sweatshirt._

_Fast forward to post-Afghanistan/Iron Man 1. Tony is feeling particularly vulnerable and is snuggled up in this faded, graying hoodie that has seen much better days. That’s how Rhodey finds him in the lab. Curled up on his couch, hands fisted in the cuffs, hood half over his head.  
  
  
_katiebug9, I kinda fucked it up, but, well, I kinda _didn't_ , too? So here's half of an apology, for the details of your prompt that I kinda fucked up.

**WITHOUT FURTHER FUCKING ABOUT, THIS STORY FOR YOU, DEAR READERS, AS FOLLOWS:**

“Fuck, it’s cold,” mutters Tony, shoving his hands under his armpits as he walks up behind Rhodey, who’s waiting for him right where he’d IM’d that he would be.

“Yeah, dude, it’s fucking- are you kidding me right now?” asks Rhodey, stopping and turning around. “Are you- are you wearing a t-shirt, kid? Are you _fucking_ wearing a t-shirt, at seven in the morning, in the middle of this goddamn snowstorm?” His eyebrows have flown up so high they’re about to fly off his face, thinks Tony resentfully.

“I didn’t know it was gonna snow,” mutters Tony, squinting up at the sky.

“How the fuck did your parents _let you out of the house_ ,” sighs Rhodey, which is, well, it’s a common complaint, from him. “How the fuck are you a genius? It’s called weather.com, it’s called, turn on the goddamn T.V., your fucking dorm is wired for cable.”

He’s moving though, stripping off his jacket, and then wiggling out of his hoodie, tossing it at Tony and throwing the jacket back on. 

Tony squints at him. “Your jacket would be warmer.”

“You shut the fuck up, I’m not talking to you until we get to your car.”

Yeah, that’s pretty common, too.

“I’m just saying, if you wanted me to be warmer, technically, you’ve been warm this whole time, and I’ve been cold, I’ve had to walk across campus, and you just had to step outside and if you want me to warm up faster, you’d-”

“Tone, Tone, Tony, I will kill you with my brain,” intones Rhodey angrily, as they walk a little further.

“I’m just saying-”

“TONY.”

Tony flips the cuffs of the sweatshirt to the inside, to try to warm up his hands. He eyes up Rhodey's footprints in the snow and bats the balled up ends of the sweatshirt's arms together, feeling awkward because the hoodie had stretched tight across Rhodey's chest and Tony's _drowning_ in it.

“It’s a hoodie, it had my body warmth,” says Rhodey, after a few more minutes. “It was the thing closest to my skin besides my own t-shirt, and it’s, like, _hoodie_ hot. It’s way warmer than this jacket.”

Tony thinks about that and squints up at Rhodey. “Did you bang the chick you were with last night?”

“ _Jesus_ , Tony,” swears Rhodey, coming to a full stop. “You’re like _seven_ -”

“Seven?” screeches Tony, hating his voice, hating that it sometimes slides upward unexpectedly, when all he wants is Rhodey’s deep bell of a voice, forever. Puberty _sucks_.

Rhodey’s still laughing at him and repeating, “Sev-EN?” in that stupid voice when they get to the garage where Tony’s dad’s money has bought him an underground, and therefore stupidly warm, space. “Fuck, she’s a beaut,” says Rhodey reverentially, like he _always_ does. Tony rolls his eyes and shuffles his feet. “It’s a goddamn shame, you know that, right?” accuses Rhodey and Tony sighs.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I oughta be learning to drive in a shitty beat up Ford,” sighs Tony.

“A shitty, beat to _shit_ Chevy,” corrects Rhodey, shaking his head. “But that was close, Tony, you almost sounded like a regular human being there, good one.”

“Shut your face,” orders Tony.

“I’ll turn around, and walk back right now, Tony, and then _where will your signed driving hours come from?_ Who you gonna get at 7 AM to drive around with you, screaming and grabbing for the oh-shit-handle? Anybody else gonna sign off on that?” demands Rhodey, rolling his eyes.

Tony kicks the nearest tire and glares at him.

“Yeah, I thought that. Besides, we have the exact same taste in cruising music, do you have any idea how rare that is? So _you_ shut _your_ face, and get in the damn car, Tony.”

Fat chance, but Rhodey can dream.

~~~

The thing is, Tony needs the hoodie, for the walk back to his stupid dorm room, after Rhodey says, “Fuck, I don’t know. One more time, one more- what’s your schedule like? I want to hit some more left turns and at least one more parallel parking, Tony, they always get you on that, they _always_ fucking get you on that, and I want you to be confident because _you’ve done it_ , not because you’re a cocky little shit.”

They’d compared schedules and they’ll meet up at four, after Tony’s physics lab lets out, but it’s a long walk from the garage to Tony’s dorm, and Rhodey’s a complete dick but not an asshole, so he lets Tony wear the hoodie.

“I want it back, though, rich boy. My mama bought that for me, the day I got my acceptance letter,” says Rhodey seriously, shaking a finger at Tony.

“Yeah, yes, okay,” drawls Tony, shifting his feet and squinting at Rhodey again. “Yes. I won’t forget.”

“You better not, rich boy, you can go buy a dozen of ‘em, but that one’s mine,” warns Rhodey.

“Yes,” huffs Tony. “Okay, I got it. Can-I-please-have- _my_ -keys-now.”

Rhodey considers him, making him squirm deep inside again. Tony scowls at the sidewalk before it shows. Scowling is way better than squirming, way cooler. Looks badass. Fuck, he needs to find his sunglasses.

“Okay,” says Rhodey finally, and tosses him the keys. Tony doesn’t catch them of course, because he’s a dumbass, a clumsy dumbass who drops things and looks like an idiot.

~~~

“He’s twelve,” Rhodey explains patiently and firmly.  
  
The girls- the women- laugh so hard they slosh their drinks. “Okay, sure, he’s young,” says the blonde, “But, like, look at him, he’s down. And he’s so, so, like-”

“Hot,” interjects the black haired chick. “He’s so _hot_.”

“He’s twelve,” repeats Rhodey firmly.

“Rhodey, man, wait,” says Tony, trying to get enough torque to get out of Rhodey’s firm grip on the back of his hoodie. “Wait, please, _don’t_.”

“He’s wearing a fucking hoodie, he’s not hot,” protests Rhodey. “It’s _my_ hoodie, it’s not _hot,_ it’s a fucking hoodie!”

“It’s hot on him,” laughs the blonde. She eyes up Rhodey and says, “It’d be hot on you, too.”

“Hoodie hot, that’s, that’s totally a thing,” laughs the black haired one, swaying to the music a little, clearly starting to lose her interest in the hot guy and his overprotective wingman.

“You are a cockblock,” declares Tony, and the blonde giggles, leaning in and kissing his cheek.   
  
“Maybe next time, don’t bring him?” laughs the blonde, grabbing her friend’s hand and guiding her back into the living room, where the bodies are so thick babies are probably being conceived just from person-to-person contact while everyone jumps around.

“Did she mean you, or me?” Tony asks Rhodey. “Because I want her to have meant you.”

“And I want women to stop fucking throwing themselves at twelve-year-olds,” mutters Rhodey, releasing Tony. “Seriously, what the fuck are you doing here? I got an IM from Jesse, and-”

“What, I can’t party?” asks Tony, physically shrugging off Rhodey’s concern and looking around, trying to spot where he should go next.

“Yeah, you can’t party, you’re _twelve_ ,” splutters Rhodey. “I swear to God, where are your _parents_.”

“Scotland. No, wait, Sweden? No idea, Rhodes,” sighs Tony, eyeing up a nearby abandoned cup.

“Oh hell, no, rich boy. I don’t care how desperate you get, you go pour something from the bottle, you do not chug unattended drinks, who the fuck knows what’s in there?” demands Rhodey firmly.

“What, like date rape drugs?” asks Tony, tilting his head to one side, scanning the party for girls passed out and being raped in corners. 

“No, like fucking mono, Tony, it’s gross, and it’s highly contagious, and _why the fuck did your parents send you to college, you are twelve.”_ Rhodey’s face is doing that thing, where he’s frustrated and exasperated, and Tony knows from experience winding him down from that pitch isn’t going to happen in this loud house with all these people around.

“Hey, no little brothers,” says a dude walking by, pointing at them. 

“Are you _serious?_ ” shouts Rhodey.

“Out,” says the dude, pointing with a finger.

“You heard him,” Tony tells Rhodey, shrugging. “You gotta go home.”

It’s not really surprising when Rhodey grabs the strings on the hoodie and uses them to pull Tony to the door. He wasn’t gonna calm down in that environment, anyway.

~~~

Tony is sick, the kind of sick he rarely gets, where he’s pretty sure he’d be happier dying, or, at the very least, being left to die, because he’s so gross, so gross that he doesn’t want to live, and his head is throbbing and he just wants to be left alone to shake and shiver and die, but that’s not gonna happen, because-

“Denmark?” hisses Rhodey, “That’s what you got for me, they’re _maybe_ in Denmark?”

Tony winces and croaks, “Or, or Australia? Austria, is that a place?” He lifts his hand, just to touch, to adjust- 

“No, you keep that in, Tony, you keep that thermometer in, stop _talking_ ,” orders Rhodey, glaring down at him, phone handset in one hand, other hand tapping the buttons 9-1-1 on the receiver in succession. 

Rhodey’s always ordering him around, thinks Tony resentfully, sulking back into the warmth of the hoodie and holding the flipped cuffs tighter, so no cold air can get up the sleeves.

“You’re burning up, kid,” says Rhodey, softly, gently, and, yeah, Tony’d figured that. Rhodey’s hand is cold, against his forehead, cold and soothing. “I’ll make soup, you got any-”

Tony shakes his head weakly. 

“Of course you don’t. You don’t even have a hotplate up here, do you?”

“Contraband,” croaks Tony around the thermometer. “Had it confiscated.”

“Shut up, keep that in.”

Tony shifts as his stomach flips, and then flips again.

He can’t keep the thermometer in, after all, but Rhodey doesn’t bitch him out for it.

That’s how he knows Rhodes is scared.

At least it all landed in the garbage can and none of it got on the hoodie.

Rhodes tries to peel him out of the hoodie, a short while later, and Tony whines, “No, no, you can’t, I’m- it’s hot, it’s the only hot thing, please, Rhodey, please, I’m freezing, and it’s so warm.”

“You’re burning up, kid,” Rhodey replies sadly, “and you’re too hot, now, you gotta get out of it.”

“No,” Tony sobs. “No, please, it’s hot, Rhodey, it’s _hoodie_ hot, it’s so warm.”

“I know, kid, I know,” Rhodey says slowly, his cool hand brushing the hair off of Tony’s forehead. “You can go right back in it, but I gotta get this fever down, kid, or- or-”

“‘M not a kid,” protests Tony.

“Then act like a grown-ass adult and take the hoodie off,” Rhodey snaps.

Tony sulks, but in the end, Rhodey wins because he just _sucks_ , and Tony shivers and shakes while Rhodey warms up soup in his microwave and forces painkillers on Tony, calling student services twice to try to get a hold of Tony’s parents.

~~~

“Is that _my_ hoodie?” demands Rhodey.

Oh, _shit_.

“Uh,” says Tony, trying to think fast, but his head is spinning, which is an interesting side effect of alcohol and he wonders briefly if he had enough time, if he could, like, do physics on the spin or something. BAC to impression of world tiltage. One of Rhodey’s big rules is that you can’t do science in just your socks and underwear, though, so, like, obviously not right now.

“Fuck,” swears Rhodey. “Take it off. Take it off, and put on whatever-the- _hell-_ you-were-wearing, when you decided to rape a twelve-year-old kid.”

“You’re _twelve?_ ” shrieks the woman, horrified, jumping to her feet and looking between them wildly.

“I’m not,” Tony protests, raising his hands up in a calming gesture he realizes never worked for his dad, and lowering them as soon as he realizes where he picked it up. “He’s, he’s joking, he’s just a little-”

“Can it, Tony,” growls Rhodey. “He’s not twelve, but he’s not seventeen, yet, or eighteen, or whatever he told you.”

“Nineteen,” mutters Tony, laying back on the bed and covering his eyes. Well, this is a complete fucking disaster. “You are, without a doubt, the worst fucking wingman, ever,” he tells Rhodey.

“You lied,” the woman shrieks.

Tony shrugs, tossing an arm over his eyes because he shouldn’t have to _watch_ the disaster, and reminds her, “I said I was _almost_ nineteen.” 

“You little _shit_ ,” she shrieks, which, yeah, okay, not original. What had he seen in her, last night, exactly?

Rhodes growls, “The hoodie, now, and get back into your dress or whatever, or I’m calling the cops.”

The woman can undress fast. Tony had really liked that about her.

“ _Wash_ that,” orders Rhodey, throwing the sweatshirt in Tony’s pile of dirty laundry after the sobbing woman has exited Tony’s room, “and then wash your _fucking_ mind, and realize she coulda gone to _jail_ , Tony, and that is- I know you have _issues_ , but you don’t put that on other people, Tone. You don’t. It ain’t her fault you got shitty parents. You want to fuck your way through the wide selection of other sixteen-year-olds in this town, at least it ain’t _illegal_ , Tony.”

“They’re so dumb,” whines Tony.

“Yeah, and you ain’t looking real smart right now, from any angle,” snarls Rhodes, standing up.

“That _was_ smart, did you see her? Fuck, she’s hoodie hot, she looked so hot in that hoodie, Rhodes, tell me you saw that,” babbles Tony.

“Yeah, real hot, fucking a piece of jailbait who _doesn’t even own his own hoodie_ , Stark,” grates Rhodes. 

Silence descends.

“‘M sorry,” mutters Tony, glancing up and wincing, and then glaring at the wall, his arms crossed.

“Tony,” sighs Rhodes, walking to the door, “Sleep it the fuck off, and when you wake up, princess, you’re writing me a research paper on the consequences _other people_ have to suffer if the cops find out they’ve fucked you.”

Tony glares at the door when Rhodes leaves, but only for a few minutes. 

~~~

The paper is 30 pages long, plus annotations, plus references, and so it has a satisfying _thump_ when he uses it to hit Rhodes.  
  
“And now you’re hitting me, is that it, kid?” shouts Rhodes.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m hitting you,” Tony shouts back. “I’m hitting you and I _said you were right_ , so you shouldn’t- I can’t believe- I _wrote the goddamn paper._ ”

“And you don’t see where your parents should know about this, should know about you drinking and sleeping with fully grown women, you don’t think they should be bothered to know it?” shouts Rhodes.

“I think you’re a fucking asshole,” hisses Tony, glaring. “And I think, I think you can _leave_.”

“Give me back my hoodie,” declares Rhodes, hand outstretched.

“It’s on the back of the fucking door,” sneers Tony. “Don’t let it hit you, on your way out.”

“Original,” says Rhodes mildly, a look of disgust on his face.

~~~

Turns out, Tony shouldn’t have bothered to get upset. Neither of his parents showed up in a tizzy, to ball him out and tell him to behave.

They sent Jarvis, instead, who straightened Tony’s room, and took him out to eat, and asked him kindly to find footsteps other than his father’s to follow in.

Rhodes taught him, back when they were friends and were talking, to always pour from the bottle. 

Well, turns out, you can just skip the pouring and the glass and drink it straight from the spout.

~~~

“Hey,” croaks Tony.

“Hey, man,” says Rhodes. Tony pulls the handset away from his ear and glares at it. “Just listen,” says the tinny voice of his late friend, and Tony sighs, pulling the handset back up to his ear and rolling his eyes.

“You there?” asks Rhodes.

“‘M here,” sighs Tony, picking at a paint chip on the cinderblock wall.

“Cindy said you’d-”

“I got sick,” Tony cuts him off. “I was stupid, and I got a little-”

“That was more than sick, Tony,” says Rhodes quietly. “That was more than a little drunk.”

“What do you care,” spits Tony, feeling sixteen, in a world full of twenty-two-year-olds, young and stupid and selfish and so _desperately_ uncool. He can’t even hold his liquor, Cindy had laughed, yesterday, he’d heard her telling the story after lab, walking home with her friends.

“Look, the problem wasn’t that I didn’t care,” says Rhodey, like he’s actually trying to be patient. “The problem was, I thought your parents would give a shit.”

“Yeah, well,” says Tony, and lets it hang there for a second before he mutters, “they don’t.”

“And that’s really not okay,” Rhodey tells him, gently.

Crying is just what today needed, just what Tony’s fucking image needed.

“I’ll be there in ten, let me in,” says Rhodey.

“Yeah,” croaks Tony. “Sure.”

~~~

It’s cold again, and Tony is, once again, without the appropriate protective equipment, according to one ROTC James Rupert Rhodes-

“Found one,” says Rhodey, standing up from his trunk, and then he laughs. “Aww, man, look, it’s-”

“Oh, wow,” says Tony, laughing, shrugging into the hoodie. He folds the cuffs in and beams up at Rhodey. “It still fits!”

“Of course it still fits,” sighs Rhodey.

“I grew,” Tony points out.

“I didn’t,” Rhodey reminds him.

“How long has it been in there?” asks Tony.

“When did you pull that stunt with the cougar?”

“What, when you made me write a 30 page research paper on why-”

“Yeah, when was that,” interrupts Rhodey.

Tony squints at him. “Year ago? Little more?”

“It’s been in my trunk for a little more than a year,” Rhodey tells him seriously.

“Dude,” says Tony, “I’m heartbroken. This is the best hoodie. It’s so _thick._ ”

“You’re thick,” says Rhodey, rolling his eyes.

“Your dick is thick,” laughs Tony.

“You’re still _twelve_ ,” sighs Rhodey, but his lips twitch.

They walk in silence, then, until Tony says, “Uh, thanks for the lift.”

“I can’t believe you still think weather is something that happens to other people, rich boy,” chides Rhodey in lieu of saying _you’re welcome, Tony._

“God, do you remember hoodie hot? This is a hot hoodie, Rhodes. It’s so damn thick. Like your dick.”

“You know what’s not hot? You, always talking about my dick.”

“Aw, c’mon. You know you like it,” teases Tony. 

Rhodey snorts. “Table 17.”

“What, the list of maximum sentences for male offenders in the state of Massachusetts in the last five years, Rhodey, you mean you _read the paper?”_ asks Tony incredulously.

“I was very proud,” says Rhodey primly.

They walk on in silence for a few more minutes before Tony starts, “Proud of your thick di-”

“Shut the fuck up, Tony,” interrupts Rhodey, shaking his head.

~~~

“I’m dying,” croaks Tony.

“Are you dying-in-a-hoodie-hot?” asks Rhodey.

“No,” croaks Tony, plucking at the t-shirt on his chest.

“Then get sicker, it’s 2 AM, and I’m going back to sleep.”

Rhodey is the _worst_ best friend, in the _history_ of best friends.

~~~

“Graduation, huh?” asks Tony.

“Yup,” agrees Rhodey.

“And then-”

“Yup.”

“The Air Force,” finishes Tony, ignoring the interruption.

“Yup.”

“You know, you can probably get out of i-”

“I don’t want to, kid. I’ll be happy to serve my country. I’m ready.”

“That’s such bullshit,” says Tony angrily. “You don’t, you don’t know what they’re like, all the generals and the-” he waves his hands “the guys in charge! They’re all, it’s all _bullshit_ , Rhodey.”

There’s a slight pause and then Rhodey’s careful voice, tight, saying, “And maybe I’d agree, if I knew any, rich boy, but my daddy didn’t have generals come to dinner, which is why I have to go meet some and form my own opinions.”

“They’re just gonna- you gotta... just be _smart_ , okay, Rhodey.”

There’s a pause.

“If you can.”

“Shut the fuck up, Tony.”

“What, I’m just saying, you rely on your hoodie hotness a little too much.”

“There’s no such thing as hoodie hotness,” laughs Rhodey. “That’s not a real thing, Tony.”

“Those girls said it was true, and they were hot, they’d know,” argues Tony.

“Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

~~~

“You get my hoodie back from her, Tony,” growls Rhodey. “You get my hoodie, and your cars, and that diamond necklace, you get it all back.”

Tony chokes back a sob, or a laugh. He chokes back something, anyway, and then takes a sip of whiskey to help ease the words up. “I don’t,” he coughs, and then tries again, “I don’t think, I don’t think that’s how it works, Rhodey, I think they get to, like, _keep_ the shit you give them.”

“Fuck that, she’s a gold-digging whore and you don’t need that in your life. Get. My. Hoodie. Back.”

“... yeah, Rhodey, I’ll, uh, I’ll talk to her.”

“What?! Don’t fucking talk to her, you own the fucking apartment, you go in there, when she’s at work, and you take everything back. All of it. Whatever else you gave her, if it means anything, you get it back.”

Tony’s so grateful for Rhodey’s fierceness, it makes him close his eyes. “I thought- she looked so hot, in the hoodie, Rhodey, hoodie hot, you know. She said she loved wearing it.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she did, it’s a fucking amazing hoodie, there’s not a human fucking being in the world who wouldn’t want to wear it, it’s softer than shit and thick and warm and if you say one thing about my cock, I swear to God, Tony-”

Tony laughs, a little weakly, and swears, “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t, _shit_.”

There’s silence for a moment, and then Rhodey says, “There’s no such fucking thing as hoodie hot, Tone.”

“No, yeah, I know that,” mutters Tony, kicking at the wall, resting his head on it.

“Stop wasting your time,” says Rhodey gently. “Go, go do some science, invent something. Save someone. Just, you know, start by saving the hoodie. And any cars you gave her.”

“Just the one,” says Tony, wincing. “And I, uh, kept the title in my name. She’s just using it.”

“Yeah, well, she’s done using you, now, so go get it back. And then call me back.”

~~~

Tony hangs the photo of him and Rhodey, on the top of the ski mountain, arms spread wide and pants around their ankles, on the fridge in his workshop. It looks right, the two MIT grads with their worn-in sweatshirts, drunk as fuck and loving life. He should call Rhodey sometime soon. If Rhodey’s even in the States. Fuck, he loved that hoodie. It was so warm, and so soft. He should dig it out, bring it down here, for when it gets cold, late at night. It’s hoodie hot, it can keep him warm.

~~~

Everything’s gone wrong. He’d protected the world a bunch of times and was half-way through privatizing world peace, but fucking _Captain America_ or _Nomad_ or whatever-the-fuck he was calling himself, had to fuck everything up. Everything. _Fuck._

And now he’s in the hospital, visiting his best fucking friend in the _hospital_ , and how many missions had Rhodey done? Hundred thirty something? Hundred forty? Fuck that. Fuck all of that, it’s exactly what Tony said it would be, an entitled rich white asshole asked him to do the impossible, knowing the odds, and now he’s here, in the squeaky clean fucking ICU, right where Tony’d told him he’d end up.

Of course, Tony never thought _he’d_ be the entitled rich white asshole asking Rhodey to do the impossible. He’d always pictured one of Howard’s cronies. 

The nurse pauses and then says, “You can come back, Mr. Stark.”

Of course he can come back, he owns the fucking building and that’s his best friend back there, snarls Tony, but he keeps his face blank and bland as he stands. Entitled rich white assholes. Huh.

Rhodey looks so fucking cold, in that stupid gown, tubes everywhere, and Tony’s glad he remembered it, remembered to grab it, made the special several-states detour to _go get it_. “Hey,” he croaks, because you’re supposed to talk to them when they’re out, it’s good for them, or maybe that’s only the ones who aren’t in a medically- _induced_ coma. Whatever.

“I, uh, look, I know the rule is one of us has to be dying-in-a-hoodie-hot, but we’re supposed to hope you don’t get a fever, don’t get infected, so I’m breaking the rule. I-” his voice breaks, _fuck_ , Rhodey _knows_ how Tony hates that, has hated it ever since _puberty_. He clears his throat and tries again, “I’m gonna go get to work, build you, uh, supports, better than any of the crap they’ll try to tell you is cutting edge. When you, uh, wake up. But I wanted- you’re, uh, sick. So I, I wanted to get you, you know.” Fuck it. Silence has to be better than this.

“Wish you’d tell me to shut the fuck up,” he whispers, bowing his head. 

He tucks the hoodie around Rhodey’s middle, thinking it looks fucking stupid but, _Jesus_ , he doesn’t have many people who actively _like_ him, who actually _know_ him, and he just abruptly and recently lost about half of the ones he thought he _had_ , so you know, it’s not a great time to forget the ones he does have, forget the things that tie them together, forget- forget _anything_ really. Take anything for granted. Be selfish with his hoodies. 

He’d worn it, on the car ride over, so it should have some residual heat, between that and how close Tony’s had it wrapped in his arms, sitting in the waiting area. Hoodie hot. That’s the best thing about that hoodie, how it retains heat.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll be back. They say you’re gonna be, well. Not fine, but, that you’re doing, uh, good, and they’ll be pulling you back to the land of the awake soon. Maybe tomorrow."

Fuck it. Tony can’t talk anymore. Rhodey hates the sound of his stupid voice, anyway.

 _Shut the fuck up, Tony_.

He pats the hoodie, tucking it just a bit tighter, and then stands, pushing away.

“Don’t lose that,” he tells the nurse who comes in, or maybe she’s been standing there the whole time, he doesn’t fucking know. He can’t keep track of _nurses_ , on top of everything else he’s trying to do. “He- he needs it.”

“Yes, Mr. Stark,” she says quietly, nodding seriously, like he’s just entrusted her with, picking an example at random, Captain America’s shield.

“Stay hot, Rhodey,” he says, turning away, tapping the metal of the bed rail. “Be back for you tomorrow.”

~~~

It’s cold, in outer space. So cold. And Tony knows that some of that is how cold it is, and some of it is actually just real, for real starvation, settling into his bones, his body eating away at stuff that he can’t replenish because there’s no food, and pretty soon there’s not going to be water, either, and then, then air. 

Maybe he’ll die before the air thing. Then there’ll still be air, if they’re ever found.

Fuck, he’s cold.

~~~

Rhodey walks in, face livid, and says, “What the _fuck_ did you think you were doing, playing superheroes, Tony? Why do you _always think_ it has to be _you?”_

Tony’s too tired, and too cold, to do anything more than stare at him for a long moment. “I’m in a hospital gown, mostly dead,” he tells Rhodey. “Wonderful to see you, too.”

“Here, put this on,” says Rhodey, and tosses him the familiar thick wadded up ball of fabric. “And then settle in, because I got a list, smartass, and I’m getting through it.”

Tony’s lips crack and bleed when he smiles, but the hoodie is so warm, wrapped around him, it’s hot, it’s incandescent. “You had this on,” he says incredulously.

“In the car, on the ride over,” admits Rhodey, shaking his head. He rolls his eyes, too, and says, “Stop smiling, you asshole. I _don’t_ love you.”

Tony smiles at him even wider, tugging the strings on the hood to make it tighter, and Rhodey huffs, “Shut the fuck up, Tony.”

“I’m hoodie hot, though, that’s why you can’t keep away from me, I’m hoodie hot,” Tony explains, folding in the cuffs and gesturing with his handless stumps to his emaciated body.

“That’s not a thing,” sighs Rhodey, settling onto the end of his bed. “You know that, right? Want me to call Pep, have her explain it?”

“Oh, she _definitely_ is hoodie hot, yes, call her, I’ll put it on _her_ and then you’ll see, it’s _absolutely_ a thing, Rhodey. Plus, then, Pepper warmth, and she’s like a furnace. Exothermic. Bet the hoodie’ll stay hot for hours, after she’s worn it a little bit, not like your heat, which is already fading, fading from the hoodie and from the world, you frigid, selfish little endothermi-”

“Shut the fuck up, Tony.”

~~~

“He can’t- you can’t- Pep, he _needs_ it,” says Rhodes hopelessly.

Pepper looks up at him and tries to fight through the fog that surrounds her. “He doesn’t _need_ anything anymore.” She’s so tired. She just wants to rest, alone, with everything that’s left, sift the rubble of what he left her. 

She can’t believe he left her. Everyone else is getting their loved ones back and so of course he left his. Just once, couldn’t he have taken the road _everyone else_ traveled?

“Maybe he doesn’t,” concedes Rhodes, quietly. But he doesn’t back away. He pats the damn ancient hoodie that reminds her so much of Tony that her throat closes on a pained noise, and then he puts it on the table. “But, Pepper, _I_ need him to have it.”

“He’s dust, Rhodey,” she tells him coldly, because she’s always cold, now, she doesn’t have warmth, she has to save all of her softness and warmth for Morgan and she doesn’t have any to spare for grown-ass men, who can learn to need someone not her, for once. “I can’t- he’s _dust._ ”

There’s a pause, silence, which is good. It’s hard to stay here, like this, in a conversation, in any conversation. It’s so hard to think, and everyone needs something from her, and she only has enough warmth to keep Morgan from getting hurt by all the cold in her mother, now. She can’t help Rhodey. She has to conserve her warmth for Morgan.

“You look cold,” says Rhodey, quietly.

Pepper gives a humorless bark of laughter. Yeah, understatement.

Rhodey takes the shirt back.

No. Wait.

“Get off,” she mutters. 

“You look cold,” repeats Rhodey. “And you know if I can wrestle Tony into it, I can wrestle you into it, so just- look, you know how to put on a shirt, you can help or you can-”

And that’s when Pepper cries, for the first time, in Tony’s old sweatshirt, that still _smells like him_ , in Tony’s old best friend’s arms, who holds her, and doesn’t make her talk, and when she talks, to say sorry, to say she doesn’t deserve a friend like Rhodey, he tells her to _shut the fuck up_.

 _Hoodie hot_ , Tony had always insisted, like that was a real thing.

She breathes deep gasps of Tony’s scent, when she can breathe, and the cuffs are so old, Tony always turned them inside, they’re falling off.

It does heat up, surprisingly fast, though. Pepper turns the cuffs inside, clutching them with her fists, her head on Rhodey’s shoulder, soaking the heat down to her bones. It turns out when all that ice inside her melts, it melts for a long time, but Rhodey doesn’t leave, although he does tell her to shut the fuck up more than once.

**Author's Note:**

> ...sorry he had to die. In the future, I give you ABSOLUTE permission to get to the last ~~~ and just, just skip that last bit...


End file.
